Gjornâl Furlan des SiencisFriulian Journal of Science

No. 9 (2008): GFS
RESEARCH ARTICLES

The transition from fossil to solar energy

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  • LUIGI SERTORIO
LUIGI SERTORIO
University of Turin, Italy. Fellowship of the Atomic Energy Commission, Ames, USA, 1964-66; member of The Institute for Advanced Study Princeton, NJ USA, 1967; visiting scientist, CERN, 1969-71; component dal INFN; visiting consultant Theory Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory, 1976-91; program director, Scientific Affairs Division, NATO, 1991-93; professor of Meccanica Statistica, Turin University, Italy; component of “Accademia Gioenia” Catania, Italy. Publications: Thermodynamics of Complex Systems, World Scientific, 1991; Storia dell'Abbondanza, Bollati Boringhieri, 2002; Vivere in Nicchia Pensare Globale, Bollati Boringhieri, 2005.

How to Cite

[1]
SERTORIO, L. 2008. The transition from fossil to solar energy. Friulian Journal of Science. 9, 9 (Jan. 2008), 55–94.

Abstract

The wealth of the industrialized Nations is inextricably correlated to great energy consumption. This fact is considered by the leaders controlling the financial fluxes as a detail within the well established economic doctrine of growth, pertinent to a kind of society that should be defended; on the other hand there is an increasing number of observers who consider such trend as a transient, more or less near to collapse. This is a profound discrepancy which will never be solved by scholarly specialized analyses. This book tries to present a synoptic and necessarily interdisciplinary overview showing the interplay of history and technology, and this implies the language of physics and biology, the texture of the progressing real life. Each subject is touched at the level of an average university education, and the main effort has been to be rigorous and simple at the same time, which of course will appear very easy to understand or difficult, depending on the specific education of the reader. But there is no other way around: either making an effort to learn also what is not familiar, or sinking in the uncertainty of opinionated choices.

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